It's the eye of the tiger
It's the thrill of the fight
Rising up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor
Stalks his prey in the night
And he's watching us all
With the eye of the tiger
- Survivor - Eye of the Tiger -
Moran woke early on their fourth day in Switzerland, even for him. The world was still dark, but the sky was greying, and he was wide awake.
He didn't stagnate well. They had been here too long. Their window of opportunity was closing.
He glanced at Lorna. She was asleep on the bed. For someone who hated the cold, she loved it here. She had been the happiest he had ever seen her the past few days. Part of him wanted to stay here, for her sake. But that was a fanciful notion, and he squashed it immediately.
He walked over, grabbed his bag from under his bed, and started packing.
She woke up that morning and saw his bags packed on the chaise lounge, and she knew their vacation was over. The real world would only wait so long for them, and none of them could afford to waste that time. What else would they do, if not this? All of them could live extremely comfortably off their hoarded fortunes, but Jim was incapable of being satisfied with the mundane, and Sebastian had a compulsion to stay active, to keep moving in some way or another, much like a shark. She could never retire without him, even if she could have left Jim's employment. So she would follow him wherever he and Jim were going, and she wouldn't drag her feet about it.
She yawned and then shifted to slowly get up, running a hand through her hair. Time to get packed.
He was out in the main room, eating breakfast and talking quietly with Jim about what was to come. The boss hadn't slept, but he never did the night before a big play, and Moran hadn't been shocked that Jim had known that this was the day his bodyguard's patience with vacation would run out.
Lorna shuffled in, dressed but still groggy, and heading to make herself coffee. She would join in their discussion after she was a little more awake.
Moran sipped his coffee and looked at Jim. "Well, I can't go in. Ines would come deal with me immediately. And you are certainly not going in."
"That only leaves one of us for the job," Jim said, eyes shifting to Lorna as she clanged around the kitchen. "And she's not exactly low profile, either."
"No," he agrees. "So that leaves it to us to make sure Ines is distracted enough to give her the time she needs."
"And how are you going to do that safely?" Lorna asked, sitting down at the table with her coffee. She still looked tired.
"First of all, none of this will be safe, not really. But if we were to start feeding images of ourselves into surveillance systems, have people break into a few CCTV cameras here and there, making it confusing but plausible..." He shrugged. "All we need to do is keep her confused and furious long enough for you to get us in."
"Alright," she shrugged. "I'll make it quick, then. You letting me be armed for this?"
He shook his head. "If you're patted down again after our man supposedly brought you in, and they find out you're armed, it could blow the whole thing. We'll bring a weapon for you with us." He glanced at Jim. "Unless, of course, you've reconsidered my recommendation that you not join me, sir..."
He gave Moran a dry look. "She ousted me, Moran. I will be there to see it happen to her."
He sighed, but nodded just a little. "Alright, then. We will bring you a gun, Lorna." He sat back just a little. "Once there, they'll take your prints, supposedly for records, but they will be entered into the clearance data for security. You'll let us through checkpoints. Our people will make sure that isn't an issue. After that it's a matter of getting to the elevator and going up. We'll have to break through the doors to Jim's office via the fire escape, but I know my system. There are fail-safes I put in place in case I was ever locked out and didn't want to be." He smirked just a little. "For this plan to work, none of us can get killed. So... Don't do that."
"How are we going to keep in contact? Or are you not?" She followed up, looking between them. Jim was looking at his nails. He knew the plan already.
He held up a small plastic box with a sheet of sticker paper inside. On it, upon closer inspection, were three small, clear circles, stuck to the paper. "Throat mics. You won't be able to hear us until you meet us, and we give you an earpiece, but we'll be able to hear you."
She nodded. "Alright. So if you get yourselves captured, how am I supposed to know? Or is it a moot point by that point?"
"You're in the middle of the network run by Ines, who has evidently just discovered Jim and I sneaking in. Draw your own conclusions," he said dryly, packing the mics away.
She snorted mildly into her coffee. Jim pushed his chair out and stood. "The plane takes off in three hours. We need to be on the tarmac before then, so don't keep me waiting."
Sebastian nodded as Jim headed for his room, and stood as well, glancing at Lorna. "Are you ready to go?"
"After I drain the rest of this bad boy, I'm good," she nodded, tapping the cup in her hand against the table in emphasis, then stood and knocked the rest of her coffee back. "Okay. Let's go home."
He nodded just a little, sliding an arm around her waist as they headed for their room and pulling her into a rare, frivolous side-hug before releasing her and going to grab their luggage.
She chuckled to herself at that, just because she felt good enough to, and headed for the door to put on her boots and jacket. She would linger in the feelings of a much-deserved break for as long as she could before she was required to step back into work mode.
He followed a few minutes later, setting the bags in the middle of the room and going to find Jim's. He returned with the bags, their employer on his heels, and they headed for the door.
The plane ride was uneventful, and they spent most of it quietly discussing the plan and various complications which could arise. By the time they landed in London, Moran had confirmation from one of their people that things were ready on their end.
Lorna fidgeted a little as they got into the waiting car, beginning to grow a little anxious. She hadn't grifted in a long time. Before America, before Moran's death, before India, before the labyrinth. She hadn't grifted in at least a year and a half, if not a little more. And now she wasn't going on some two-bit mission to steal information for a backwater politician with enough money in their name to hire Jim, she was going on a mission to take back the whole fucking network. If she didn't do it, who knew when their next chance would be if she wasn't shot right there?
Moran was nervous as well, though he was better about not showing it, keeping his movements carefully controlled. Still, he disliked the idea of sending Lorna in on her own, and the idea of Jim accompanying them. Both went against his duties as a bodyguard. He should be going in first, if not alone. Should be shielding them from Ines. But that wasn't how this worked, so he bit his tongue and sat silent.
The car ride was uneventful, but there was no reason for it to be otherwise, so her quiet sense of relief felt a little unwarranted. The sense of relief was very quickly replaced by anxiety. She took a deep breath as they stopped across the street from the above-ground entrance, the law front firm that was used as an excuse for owning such a big building, and she held out a hand to Sebastian, eyes flitting over to him. "Throat mic?"
He took it out of the box and handed it over. "Right there," he said, nodding quietly to a tall woman in a leather jacket walking down the road. "Follow her. She'll 'make' you, you let her take you down, and we go from there."
She nodded, pulling out the plastic sheet and peeling off one of the practically invisible little circles, sticking it onto the downward slope of her throat, close to her collar, as close to her voice box as possible. "Alright. Hard to test whether or not this thing is working in here, and it's going to be odd if I just hang out in front of the car for a minute, so I suppose we're going to have to trust it'll work out. We good to go?"
He nodded just a little. "Go." He didn't want to linger, or think too much. Jim smirked just a little.
She only reached out for a second to touch his shoulder before she opened the door and got out, falling easily into the pedestrian traffic to tail the distinctive leather jacket in front of her, easily spotted between men and women in black suits and bright t-shirts. The agent turned a corner a few blocks later, and when Lorna rounded into the alleyway behind her, her gun was raised.
"Whoa!" She yelped, hands jumping up by her head in surrender. "Jesus, lady! You dropped your wallet!"
"Hands on your head, Harrison," the woman said without preamble. "Now."
She muttered a swear under her breath, putting her hands on her head. She was pretty sure she recognized this woman from the grifting department. A recent hire, probably, considering she was coming up blank on a name. Interesting that she was loyal.
The woman walked behind her, pulling her hands behind her roughly and cuffing them. "You're bold, coming into our territory. Or stupid."
"Stupid, probably," she quipped, giving her a look at the rough treatment. "And watch it, will you? I haven't done shit to you, no reason to yank me around like a stiff puppet."
"Lotta reason, actually," she retorted, closing the handcuffs a touch roughly. "But you'll get briefed on that later. Let's move."
"Ooooh, I'm going to get briefed?" She smirked, letting the woman guide her forward, "Good lord, I feel so privileged. Who am I supposed to thank?"
"Shut up," she growled, putting her jacket around Lorna's shoulders to hide the cuffs. She pressed the gun into the small of Lorna's back a bit firmly as she headed for the street. "Walk quickly, don't look at anyone. You make a noise or a signal and you're dead."
"I would mime locking my lips and throwing away the key, but, well," she snorted, falling quiet as they reached the street, letting her face go blank, following the guiding movements of the gun at her back.
The walk through the street was uneventful, and five minutes later they entered the first level of headquarters, checking in with the front desk and heading for the elevator. This particular lift shaft only went up one floor, dead-ending on the security level for processing, which was precisely where they were headed.
"What, are you going to have Security process me?" Lorna scoffed as they stepped out of the elevator and didn't head for the other shaft, which while behind several lines of red tape would have been standard for any prisoner brought in for Jim's immediate attention. Really, though, she only said it to inform them as to where they were.
"You think I'm just gonna waltz you straight into the big office? Not everyone is as impulsive as Moriarty," the woman scoffed, shoving Lorna forward a bit roughly as they headed across the floor. Other officers were looking up, standing, walking over, eyes wide. A moment later the floor supervisor, a woman with 'Mag, Fuck Off' scrawled on a 'hello my name is' sticker on her jacket, pushed through the crowd, eyeing Harrison up and down. "Get her to holding. I want her strip-searched and hosed down."
"Listen, I know I'm a looker, but wanting to see me wet? That's a little bit far," she suggested, smirking with all the bravado of a woman desperately pretending someone was coming for her. Her eyes shifted over the crowd, scanning for familiar faces and finding a fair number. She didn't call them out, wary of singling anybody out as being on first name basis with her.
"Go," Mag said, and Harrison's captor shoved her off toward the rear holding cell.
She intentionally walked Lorna a bit close, a bit roughly, and found a chance to breathe, "Where's your mic? "
She (purposely) tripped a little as they crossed the threshold to the holding room and managed to lean her weight all the way back to avoid face-planting, and as she reached optimal ear-to-mouth distance whispered a single word. "Throat."
Her captor didn't respond, just unlocked her cuffs and shoved her into the center of the room, gun raised. "Strip," she said lazily.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to it," she muttered, rolling her eyes a little as she started unbuttoning her shirt. It was a little less daunting a prospect than before India, but she was still self-conscious of the scar from her de facto open-heart surgery. The woman didn't really seem to care about the broad scar on her chest, just walked out to grab a hose from outside the door once Lorna was naked, and started to spray her down with frigid water, missing the throat seemingly without thought.
"Fuck, fuck!" She started swearing up a storm as the freezing water hit her, dancing on the spot, her teeth gritting. She was sure it made for amusing radio.
The woman smirked, seemingly entertaining herself for a few minutes hosing Lorna down, before she finally let the spray stop and nodded to her. "Get dressed."
"Yeah, uh huh, thanks," she snapped, teeth chattering, gathering up her clothes from the dry corner and hurrying into them, shivering. "Christ, why is that even a policy? It's not like you're going to fucking eat me."
"Because it's fun." She leered. "Come on, let's go."
"Yeah, yeah, fucking whatever," she muttered, following, still cold from the water. God damn. The woman was good at her job, though.
She walked her another cell over, motioning for her to go inside. "Don't even think about trying to get out," she smirked. "The lock is fingerprints only, and we'll know you tried."
"Yeah, I know, I used to be partially in charge of this fucking building," she rolled her eyes, stepping into the cell, somehow with a movement that was mocking. "Get out of here. I'm sick of that smile."
She tsked. "Sorry, honey. I was just reminding you. Everyone knows you didn't have much time for details, bouncing between the bosses' dicks."
Her eyes narrowed, stare hardening. Ally or not, she couldn't let that stand. "Watch it, honey. If you're going to call me a slut, at least get the details right. One, I became the head of my department of my own merit before I fucked Moran, two, there was no bouncing between, it was either Moran or both of them, and three, if you think I'd let details slip past me just because of a little fuck you have an entirely misplaced idea of how the grifting department operates. Don't ever call me honey again. We'll see how fast I can kill you, then."
She chuckled, closing the cell door. "Good luck with that, honey. We'll see how that works out for you." She headed down the hall.
Lorna came very close to straight up seething as the door shut, and moved to go sit in the corner for five minutes to wait for them to go back to their business a little. "I'm going to kick her ass once we get Jim in here again, just fair warning," she muttered under her breath.
Moran and Jim both rolled their eyes. Moran was perfectly still, while Jim was tapping out a staccato rhythm against the dashboard. "She does know that that woman is the key to moving her out of the cell, yes?" he asked dryly. Moran didn't respond.
Once she'd judged that five minutes had passed (which involved some very tedious counting on her part to make sure she didn't rush) she stood again and pulled her wet hair into a ponytail, which was incredibly complicated when you had nothing but your own hair. Once she'd finished that, she moved to the door, moving her thumb to hover over the reader, and took a deep breath. "Here goes."
Moran watched the street in the direction of the network, as if he could see what was going on, waiting.
She pressed her thumb to the sensor, biting her lip, and a few tense moments passed before the green outline blinked and the door clicked, and she let out a breath. She pressed the tips of her fingers on her left hand to the door and ever-so-gently pushed the door open, leaning to keep her line of sight with the door. No one in the immediate vicinity. Good, the woman was doing her job. There was a small, unoccupied office just across the hall, and it was going to have to work. "I'm out," she murmured, stepping out and slowly shutting the door behind her to make sure it was quiet, before carefully crossing the hall and slipping into the office, shutting that door as well and sitting down at the desk, pulling over the thumbprint scanner and hoping the holes Sebastian had built into the security net were adequate enough for her to get access to the doors from here.
Her luck held out. "Doors are yours, gentlemen. I can loop the security cameras for three minutes, then I'm turning them back on so I can see if anyone's sneaking up on me."
They wasted no time, making their entry through a side door that Moran had altered to read as a storage closet on the blueprints. That had been one of the riskier moves, but it was paying off now. Moran walked ahead, gun in hand, eyes scanning the empty hallways.
Jim walked just behind, also with a gun, almost visibly vibrating with energy. Finally. Finally they were taking back his network, and he would lord it over Ines as he dismembered her and locked her away. It took a lot of self-restraint not to turn on the dramatics, to find a good time to burst into some distracting song and dance. He really doubted his bodyguard would approve, though, and in this case he had to defer judgment.
They worked their way through the lower level quickly, heading for Harrison. Sebastian left two unlucky guards' bodies in the back of a small closet, his finger marks bruised dark on their throats.
Lorna stared at her watch, watching the three minutes pass, grinding her teeth a little as it neared the time, her free hand hovering over the keyboard, ready to undo the loop. She couldn't risk anybody else noticing, and she really couldn't risk somebody walking in on her while she was unarmed. She was capable of hand-to-hand, but the fact was that this was the security department, and one mistake here could lead to a sucker punch that would put her out immediately.
The door clicked open at two minutes and fifty-seven seconds, Moran and Jim slipping through and shutting the door tightly behind.
She slapped the button and the footage flickered as the feed returned to normal, and she turned, holding out a hand. "Gun, please. I'm feeling twitchier by the minute being unarmed."
Moran already had her piece in hand, and gave it over, along with an earpiece. "Here. Let's get moving."
She nodded, putting in the earpiece and quickly checking the gun's chamber and the safety before she opened the door for them, her face tight, blank of emotion. Things were going well, so far, but she didn't want to jinx it.
They worked their way through headquarters with practiced grace. They all knew these halls like home, and made it to the elevator with few issues. Lorna's thumb did exactly what it needed to, and the lift started upward.
The lift, however, did not continue to where it was supposed to go. It came to an abrupt halt on the floor beneath Jim's- Ines', actually, for the moment. Lorna exchanged a look with Sebastian and turned off the safety on her pistol.
Moran remained outwardly calm, but internally he was tense. They had decided to take the lift over the stairs because it was faster, and they passed less cameras, but this had always been a risk. He held his gun carefully, ready to shoot whatever the door opened on.
The doors opened to reveal Keira Moran with a shotgun and a small band of men behind her. The shotgun was pointed into the elevator. Lorna took a tense breath. "Put down your weapons," Keira said coldly, her ice blue eyes looking at them like they were strangers.
He didn't shoot.
He should have shot in that first instant, before she had a chance to speak. Should have downed her before she knew what had happened. But his finger faltered just slightly on the trigger, and the opportunity was lost.
He faltered.
"Don't be an idiot," he shot back, gun still raised.
Keira cocked the shotgun, and Lorna winced slightly. She'd always been afraid of them. She had seen how they could pulverize - almost vaporize - someone's head. "Don't make me ask again."
He considered the situation, but there wasn't much choice, and he slowly lowered his gun. "Been a while, kid."
"You don't say," she replied dryly, wrinkling up her nose sarcastically. The shotgun remained trained on them. "Don't pretend you care. It's unbecoming. I see you, Moriarty, stop," she snapped, zeroing in on Jim as he shifted his gun upwards a notch. He looked pissed. Lorna was looking for a way out of this.
"Keira, you know Ines is going down. Do the smart thing, here."
"She'll be just fine, actually," Keira said with a small smirk. "Guns on the ground. Let's go."
Lorna thought about lifting her gun and shooting Keira right between the eyes before she could react and startling the hell out of the men she was with, but it was a hell of a risky thing to do, and she didn't know if she could bring herself to do it. Sebastian's daughter. It would feel like shooting a young version of him. It was odd, how they had a little difficulty getting along. Sebastian loved her, and Keira was just like him, but for some reason they butted heads. She crouched and put her gun on the floor.
Sebastian did the same, and glanced back at Jim. "Gun down, sir," he said quietly. He was between the other man and the shotgun, but that didn't necessarily afford much protection. Not at this range.
Jim grit his teeth, glaring at Moran for a second before he crouched and followed their lead, his stare making it clear that he knew exactly what Sebastian had done, and he was not pleased with the hesitation. Ines had been smart to convert Keira to her cause. It was his only weakness that he didn't carry around on his arm or shield behind his back. It was the only thing accessible from headquarters.
He felt the heat in Jim's gaze, and knew he was going to pay in pain for that failure later. He deserved it, he knew he did.
He stepped forward out of the lift with his hands in sight, slowly, but before they were beckoned, pushing the limits of their control.
"Slowly," Keira warned, taking a few steps backwards as they stepped out of the lift. The men behind her adjusted their grips on their guns. Lorna tripped a little on Jim as she stepped out, trying to catch his attention. She'd picked up a small knife in the office on the way out, and she wanted to use it. They couldn't allow handcuffs to be placed on them. That would be it. One of them might be killed before they could escape again.
Jim saw the motion, saw the twitch of muscles in his sniper's back as the man planned, and hid a smirk. This would be fun. He nodded just slightly when he knew Harrison was looking, and watched, knowing Moran was just a breath away from making his own move.
Keira's eyes were glued on the biggest threat in the room, and Lorna was glad that Keira had never seen her in action. She was no Sebastian Moran, but besides him, she counted herself among the most capable in the room. Keira wasn't keeping track of her.
The second she stepped carefully into arm's reach of her, she struck out like a snake, shoving the barrel of the shotgun upwards and only wincing slightly as Keira pulled the trigger in surprise, showering them all with plaster, and making the man who looked up at the blast swear as dust rained into his eyes. One down for the count. Before Keira could get control over the shotgun again Lorna hit her, closed-fist, in the center of her face, and she went down with a sharp crack, yanking the gun but losing hold of it. Lorna spun it, braced it, and fired it into the faces of the two men closest to her.
Moran had moved a split second after Lorna had cleared the gun from his chest, barrelling into the two men nearest him and getting a handle on one of their guns, kicking the other in the balls before he had the chance to fire and then shooting him in the head. The next few moments were a spray of bloody mist as he and Lorna moved through the small crowd, executing with precision.
As the last man fell Lorna let the sights of the shotgun fall to encompass Keira, bloodlust clear in her eyes. "I didn't even have to use the knife," she said pleasantly, smirking. "Now Keira, don't give me a reason. I'm engaged to your father and I'd rather not have to blow you away in our moment of triumph."
Keira's face twisted in disgust, and she leaned back a little from where she had been moving to sit up. She raised a hand to pinch her broken nose. "Engaged? Jesus." She laughed. "You have gone soft."
She pumped the shotgun, the shells clattering out of the barrel and landing at her feet. "Keira, darling," she said sweetly, "You've seen me willing to kill myself because he was dead. But if you're not careful, the last thing you'll see is me killing you for myself. Or, more realistically, blowing off your feet, because we might need the top half of you. Christ, Keira, I've had quite enough of being called soft. Especially by you. You know who else I let get away with that? Nobody. It might take me a day, or a week, or a year, but everyone who calls me soft I gut, you understand? I have survived worse than you could ever fucking imagine. I think I've fucking earned a little fucking happiness. I don't have time to have three fucking girlfriends at once, or to get a fucking dog, or to have a weekly poker night with the guys. But I have him." She lifted the shotgun and shot up into the plaster, this time on purpose, glaring down at the younger Moran as white flakes fell onto her hair. "And I have this gun. So am I going to get a little goddamn respect, or am I going to have a spat with Sebastian later?"
Moran could see the fire in Keira's eyes, the stupid pride he knew only too well. Her lips were forming a smarmy response when the butt of his stolen pistol paused the conversation. Kiera slumped sideways, unconscious, and he knelt to tie her up with a belt he'd taken from one of the bodies. "We don't have time for this. Let's move."
"Fine," she said, taking apart the shotgun with practiced hands and dropping it to the side. She didn't want anybody else having easy access to it, and it was impractical to carry it around. When she was done, she looked up and found Jim looking at her funny. "What?" she asked defensively, raising her eyebrows at him.
"You know how to take apart a Remington 870? I was under the impression that you didn't know anything bigger than a pistol."
"I had to do a hit with one of these, once. Had to practice taking it apart so I could ditch it out a small window of a moving train's bathroom."
Moran just rolled his eyes, walking back to pick up their guns out of the lift. "Let's go," he said firmly, handing Jim and Lorna their weapons.
"No need to be snippy just because you utterly failed, Tiger," Jim purred softly, taking the gun and heading for the stairwell.
"Honestly, he's completely ignoring how badass I just was. I have a particular hot vibe with shotguns," she sighed, playing along with Jim. She wasn't necessarily pleased with Sebastian, either.
He ignored them both, well aware that he deserved the barbs and not particularly in the mood to field them. He walked past Jim with long strides, making the stairwell and clearing it- an easy task since the well only went down from this level. "We're good," he said quietly. "Let's see if we can get the lift running."
"Do you have that kind of electrical experience? Because I don't," Lorna raised her eyebrows.
"Well, seeing as the sole access to Jim's floor is through the elevator, we have two options." He walked over to it, and started fiddling with the button panel. "Wait here to get shot..." He hid a victorious smirk as he pressed something and the lift panel popped free, reaching in and emerging a moment later with a small switch. "Or we use the override I had installed months ago."
Jim snorted, and Lorna perked up, grinning. "What? Oh, you devious bastard. That's fantastic. Now let's go fuck that bitch up so we can get our damn apartment back."
He kept his expression neutral, though he was rather pleased himself, and waited until the other two joined him before he pressed the switch. The door closed, and the lift started upward.
Lorna shifted anxiously as they rose, biting her lip. Finally, it was coming to a head. Months of planning, of distractions like sickness and interpersonal drama, of Sebastian's injury... And finally things would return to some semblance of their fucked up normal.
Moran was buzzing with energy, but he stayed stock still, gun raised, ready.
The lift door opened smoothly, and now all that was between them and Ines was a single door. Admittedly, it was a wood-panelled two-inch thick solid steel door, but that was only an issue if you didn't have a one-time security override code that was supposedly for a peon maintenance worker scheduled to service the bolting system some time this year.
Moran scanned his thumb and punched the 13-digit code in from memory, and the mechanisms of the door- which had been deadbolted, it seemed- slid back. He felt another thrill of victory as he pushed it open. This is my security system, you bitch. Just try and stop me with it.
A bullet hit the door with a sharp PAAANNG noise as it opened, and Lorna shoved Jim out and to the side of the door frame so Sebastian could focus without worrying about his own safety. She ignored the exasperated look Jim gave her. "Stay the fuck back!" Ines snarled, loud enough to hear even though Lorna couldn't see her.
Moran stayed shielded behind the door, gun in hand. His trigger finger was aching in protest, but he barely felt it, body thrumming and alive. This was what he had been born to do. Combat, infiltration, protection. "You're alone up here, Ines. Someone broke the lift. And you must be a rough shot with that tendon still recovering- sonuvabitch when those things get damaged, isn't it? So put the gun down before I decide I'm annoyed."
"All it takes is one shot, Moran, don't test me," she hissed, her hand shaking anyway. She was glad he couldn't see her. Smart of him. She was reasonably certain she could hit him if he poked his head out. How hard could it be? "And they'll fix the fucking lift. Your kid is just as stubborn as you, Moran. She'll come for me."
"She did express some loyalty to you, but it's tough to work your way past a bullet in the brain, no matter how stubborn you are." He sighed. "It's a shame. She had potential. I hate having to put down potential. But I've killed better." He shifted the door slowly, keeping it between him and the voice.
She put a bullet in the door frame, her hand suddenly too tight on the gun. "You KILLED HER?!" She screamed, her gaze hazing with rage for a moment, and she half leaned over the desk, her fingers gripping the edge of the wood too hard. "You FUCKER."
Moran would have glanced at Jim and Lorna with a confused expression, would it not have jeopardized his concentration. As it was, he took a glance at where the bullet had struck and how, working angles and edging the door open a little further, knowing he was still likely safe. "What do you care, Ines? I mean, really? Someone as heartless as you? Your cunt was even cold when I fucked it," he sneered, pushing buttons.
Lorna made a choked sort of scoff off to the side, disbelieving and a little annoyed, and Jim elbowed her, hard.
"I think Keira would have disagreed with you, Sebastian," Ines snarled fiercely. She wasn't going to lie down and take it; she was going to give as good as she got. "I can tell you hers wasn't."
Sebastian Moran did not lose control. He was a calm, cold soldier, who didn't lose control, who was emotionless, and who didn't miss.
One of those statements was true as his bullet ripped Ines's gun out of her hand, and a half second later his hot barrel rammed against her forehead, free hand grabbing her throat. "Go ahead and explain," he growled softly.
Ines gasped for breath, the gun searing a circle into her skin, her hand wrapped around his wrist ineffectively. "I didn't- didn't force her, if that's your concern," she said hurriedly, with a little difficulty. Despite her bravado, her anger, she very much did not want to die. "I was just- just playing with her feelings at first, but, fuck, I don't fucking know, I'm not Moriarty, I have emotions too," she said desperately. "It just happened."
"You fucked my daughter," he growled, twisting the gun against her skin. "And if Moriarty hadn't already claimed you, I would make sure you remembered how bad an idea that was."
She took a deep breath, eyes darting to the door as Lorna and Jim stepped through, both with varying degrees of a cruel smirk. Lorna's, unsurprisingly, was the less amused of the two. "You've just made a plethora of bad decisions, haven't you?" Jim hummed. "Don't worry, Moran, you can have a turn with her."
"I appreciate that, sir," he said with a grin, pulling Ines over the desk and shoving her to her knees on the ground, his gun pressing now into the back of her head. "Lorna, care to tie her up?"
"Sure thing," she agreed cheerfully, though her eyes were dark and intense, and took the rope Jim handed her before she walked behind Ines and slipped under Moran to start roughly tying her up. She hoped the bitch got rope burn.
Ines hissed in pain as the rope yanked on her bad hand, and Moran grinned. "Glad to see that still hurts."
Jim stepped forward slowly, crouching in front of the bound woman. "Hello, Ines..." he crooned in a friendly voice. "Good to see you again."
She spat into his face. "I should have killed you when I had the chance, Moriarty."
He barely flinched at the spittle, considering her for a moment before reaching for his pocket. He nodded to Moran, who braced the woman, not quite sure what the boss was up to. Moriarty emerged with a pocket knife, flicking it open, and reaching out to grip Ines's arm, drawing the knife down her bicep and flaying away a wide strip of skin.
Ines screamed, and Lorna chuckled, pulling away a little, on her knees still. "Alright, that's done," she said, ignoring the woman writhing in pain a few feet away. "What next?"
Jim sat back, using the skin scrap to wipe the spit from his cheek, before dropping it to the side and wiping his bloody fingers on Ines's trousers. "Now we go find out who's loyal and who isn't."
Lorna nodded, getting up from her knees and brushing off her hands on her trousers. "Alright. Tell me what you need me to do and I'll do it. I assume you have a plan?"
He rolled his eyes at the implication that he might not have a plan, and stood as well. "You and I will be reading the crowd, kitten. And Sebby will be giving the pink slip to whoever doesn't make the cut, assuming he's got the stomach for it." Moran's eyes flashed angrily at that, and his grip on Ines tightened roughly, but Jim just smirked. He wiped the bloody knife off in Ines's hair- the woman hissing and moving away angrily- and flicked it closed, stowing it away in his pocket. "As for this one... She doesn't leave our sight. Sebby, make sure she can't wander off." Moran shook off the percolating anger, and considered Ines, before reaching out a foot and pressing it down hard on her leg. She screamed in pain, struggling fruitlessly to try and get away, but Moran just leaned more weight in, and a moment later there were a series of cracking, crunching noises as several bones splintered. Jim nodded in approval.
Lorna smirked in satisfaction, crouching down in front of Ines and taking hold of the woman's chin. "You know, I think I might want to call in a specialist like she did for me, with your permission. What was his name? Gavin? Garrett? Greg? Something like that. He's dead, of course, but I'm sure we can find another one." She patted Ines' cheek and stood, her eyes cold. "We'll kill him afterward, of course, but what if you do something in the future that's punishable?" She hissed, and as Ines took in a labored breath to spit something back, Lorna slapped her, open-fist, hard enough to make the woman fall onto her side. Then she shook her hand out and turned to the others. "Alright, sorry. Where were we?"
"Rooting out traitors," Jim said, looking vaguely bored. "Ideally we'd just kill everyone and start fresh, but that's too much turnover. Things would go to hell. So we find a happy medium."
"Alright," she smiled, and clapped her hands together once, heading for the door. "Let's get this done. I want to sleep in my own bed tonight."
In the end, it took them almost nine hours.
Moran dragged Ines around by the collar, the woman slipping in and out of consciousness, and shot whoever Jim and Lorna decided had too much sympathy for the woman, or whoever shot at them first. He didn't bother trying to keep track of numbers- it was the most people he had killed in one day in a long time. There were pools of blood and piles of bodies on every floor, in every hall. They gathered a following of the loyal, who started taking those Jim 'spared' for questioning to the cell blocks. Moran sent one such group to deal with the bound Keira, ignoring the looks he got from Jim and Lorna.
When they finally reached the basement, Lorna collapsed into a chair in the breakroom, running a hand through her hair with a sigh. "Jesus fuck," she muttered, tiredly. "That was exhausting. I never want to look at another person again."
Moran grunted his agreement, leaning against the wall. They had deposited Ines in the priority security cell, and only a series of security scans from two of the three of them could open the door. His arm and shoulder ached from dragging her around all day, and his right hand was screaming angrily at him. It would have been overworked even on a good day, but recovering from damage as it was, it was furious.
"How's your hand?" she asked, quietly. She wouldn't have asked if Jim had been in the room, but as soon as they'd had everything secured he'd disappeared back into the elevator, determined to fix things in his penthouse and to see what state the network was in.
"It's been better," he said quietly, using his left hand to extract the gun from where it was sort of clawed in his stiff right, and tucking it away in his shoulder holster.
She nodded, falling silent for a minute. "We should deal with Keira. Before we get some rest. I don't want to, but I don't know if letting her stew will make things easier."
He glanced at her, eyes guarded, but she didn't seem to be attempting to fuck with him, so he nodded just a little and straightened slowly. "Fine. Let's go."
She stood, letting out a long breath, and headed for the door, placing a hand on his shoulder as she passed, and then paused by the door, looking back at him. "How do you want to play this, Sebastian? It's your daughter. Your call."
His eyes were closed off when they met hers, and he considered her for a moment before answering. "We'll see where her loyalties lie and go from there. What needs to be discussed?" His voice is flat.
She sighed, eyes falling shut, and raised her hand from the door to rub at her brow. "Fucking... Whatever, Sebastian. Be like that," she shook her head, hand falling back to the door and pulling it open so she could step through without another look at him. She didn't have the emotional energy to deal with him like this.
He was perfectly content with that solution, and followed behind her down the halls to the cell Keira had been placed in.
Lorna waited outside the door for him, and gestured at it dryly, prompting him to go before her.
He didn't say anything, just scanned his thumb and opened the door.
Playlist: The Killers - The Man